Today's market demand for new drugs, combined with the difficult economic climate, is challenging bioprocessors to review their manufacturing systems and seek ways to make them more flexible, reliable and cost effective. Increasingly, biomanufacturers are turning to single-use aseptic processing systems to meet or beat aggressive product introduction timeframes while controlling cost.
In the pharmaceutical fluid drug processing and manufacturing industry, there is a need for aseptic sterile conditions in the direct fluid product transfer path to minimize bacteria contamination, which results in contamination of the product batches at various stages of production. With the costs to manufacture a single drug approaching $1 billion and time-to-market ranging from 8 to 12 years, bioprocess manufacturers need to minimize all bio-burden contamination risk points in their process. By introducing a localized non-encumbering sterilization process at each process connection with optional sterilant level verification, the contamination risk concerns of bioprocess manufacturers would be addressed.
It is known to use localized steam sterilization, and steam sterilization is approved by the FDA. However, the use of steam suffers from several drawbacks. First, steam production has recurring costs. Also, there are thermal safety issues regarding the handling of steam by floor personnel. Moreover, concerns arise over the collection, recycling, or reprocessing of steam condensate after sterilization.
Ozone sterilization of medical and pharmaceutical devices has also been approved by the FDA. It is currently used on large scale batch sterilization of components used in sterile processing. However, small localized connector or small device “point-of-use” (POU) and zone ozone sterilization is not known to be in use.